Faced with Stricter Border Control, Ciudad Juárez Criminal Groups Target Locals for Kidnapping

By "El Huaso" for Borderland Beat

With control of the US-Mexico border tightened, kidnappings are on the rise in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, as local criminal groups who previously focused on human smuggling have refocused on drug dealing and kidnapping to make up for lost revenue. 

Ciudad Juarez has seen 95 kidnappings since the start of the year. While in previous years kidnappings have focused on migrants, now criminal groups have turned their focus to locals.

Border crossings have dropped sharply since the election of US President Donald Trump, who declared an emergency at the southern US border, and subsequently enacted policies which have effectively slowed border crossings to a trickle. 

Prior to the US crackdown on illegal crossings, criminal groups in Ciudad Juarez were making $100 million USD a month from human smuggling into the US, Chihuahua state security secretary Gilberto Loya told InSight Crime.

Upon entering the oval office in late January 2025, President Trump enacted a number of policies and orders which essentially turned illegal migration off like a faucet. Numbers of encounters and crossings recorded at southern border, which had reached record numbers, sharply dropped. These decreases can be attributed to wide sweeping policies like the deployment of US troops, construction of barricades, and the revival of 'Remain in Mexico', which required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico until their appointments with CBP, rather than being released into the US to await their appointment date.

Faced with stricter border controls, Ciudad Juarez criminal groups have turned their focus to crimes in Ciudad Juarez, especially kidnapping.  

Determining the true number of kidnappings is difficult. Most crimes are not reported in Mexico, as Mexicans generally lack confidence in their security forces and judicial system. Further, kidnappers often demand that the families of victims do not contact authorities, lest they risk the kidnappers killing their victim. 

Government counts also differ. What is consistent between all datasets, is a clear increase between 2024 and 2025.

For example, In June 2025, the government reported that 95 people had been kidnapped since January 2025 in Ciudad Juarez. One year earlier, the same news source reported that 28 had been kidnapped in a similar time frame across the whole state. 

The A further change from prior years is the profile of the kidnapping victims. In prior years, criminal groups focused on migrants and foreigners. Now, criminal groups are focused on kidnapping locals, reported Guillermo Asiaín, a Chihuahua security analyst.

Sources: InSight Crime, WOLA - Border Oversight Data, CBP Data, Norte Digital 2025, Circuito Frontera, Norte Digital 2024

This article was heavily sourced on the reporting of Victoria Dittmar from InSight Crime.